Grudge
by Kuruk
Summary: Hyūga Neji could not have asked for a more perfect opportunity. Neji-centric, Chuunin exam arc. Complete.


_Hello, my name is Kuruk and this is my first Naruto fic._

_I hope you enjoy this. Neji-centric, set during the Chuunin exam preliminary matches._

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing._  
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_**Grudge**_

Hyūga Neji could not have asked for a more perfect opportunity.

In a way, she had always stood in front of him. She was the jewel of the family's main branch—Hiashi's precious little daughter, entitled to all the things that Neji should have _earned_ by virtue of his natural-borne abilities and the training he had endured to prove himself.

He should have hated her for that... because it was _unfair_ that she would be given everything she had ever wanted on a silver platter while Neji had been beaten down and subjugated, enslaved by the main branches accursed juinjutsu. But Neji had never learned the concept of "fairness", because when the other children had been playing games and shouting "that's not fair" at the slightest appearance of a disadvantage, Neji had been taught _obedience_, _patience _and the near _veneration_ of the main branch.

Back then, he had even loved her in the way that little boys loved their little sisters. She had been (_still was_) small and vulnerable and so frail, and the boy in Neji had sworn to protect her from anything and everything that could ever hurt her. The words _branch family_ and _duty_ played no part in it; he hadn't even known what those words meant, not really.

The love he felt for her endured the branding, and even his uncle's mistreatment of his father. She couldn't be blamed, not when Hiashi drove her so hard in their training that she appeared close to breaking on several occasions...

Father had been bitter. He had hated the main family, hated the binds they had placed on them. Neji couldn't understand why his father was so unhappy, why he seemed to hate her so. The way Neji saw it, she wasn't much different from them. She was treated just as badly—forced to fight when all she wanted to do was play, berated for not being able to block the move just _so_, or find the chakra points of an opponent in a split second.

Neji loved his father while he loved her. Sometimes those loves came into conflict, and it confused him...

If there was one thing that was for certain, though, Neji hated his uncle. Everything bad that happened to the three of them had been Hiashi's fault, after all. His branding, his father's bitterness, the way she cried when no one was looking... love and hate coexisted in Neji's heart illogically; he loved his cousin while he hated her father and the very entity they both represented. He couldn't put it into words but...

And then his father died.

No, and then his father was _sacrificed._

He hadn't understood at first... but then it became clear. Hiashi had made a mistake... had angered a rival village by killing their leader. In order to avoid war, the village leaders demanded that Hiashi comply with the village's demands and hand himself over to their enemies.

It should have been that simple. Hiashi had made a mistake. _His_ mistake. He should have paid for that mistake...

But the coward had weaseled his way out. Had sent his own twin brother—Neji's father—to die for him like the expendable sacrificial sheep that he was.

_Duty. Obedience. Patience. Veneration._

The lessons he'd learned finally began to make sense to Neji. He _understood_, he saw it all. At the end of it all, he was nothing but a pawn to the main family, just like his father. No matter how hard he worked, no matter how much he trained and proved his superiority, he would always be inadequate when compared to them.

Neji was nothing but a part of the holistic picture. He was_ Hyūga_ Neji. A member of the branch family of the Hyūga family. A pawn to be thrown at the advancing masses so that the higher-ups could survive.

Just like his father...

The love he had felt for her crumbled then, almost as if it had been nothing but a facade. He learned that it had been for _her_, that if she had not been so _stupid _and _useless_ and _weak_ his father would never have had to die. Hiashi killed for her, for his weak little daughter. His father had died for this mistake. _She was a mistake_.

It all made sense to Neji now.

Since that day, his hatred for the main family only grew in the stunted, corrupt way of wretched old trees that feed off blood. The love he had felt for her was gone, replaced by a hate so strong that it was all Neji could do to keep himself from killing her right then and there...

But no... Neji wasn't an animal. He wouldn't let them treat him like one. It was his destiny to be a pawn, but he would not be an animal. Fate was absolute. If he fought, he was struck down like a rabid dog. It was much easier, much more _dignified_, to submit to fate. There was no fighting it, only_ duty, obedience, patience, veneration_...

And now... now...

Now she stood before him as an opponent in a _test_.

The family had no say here... he was _allowed_ to attack. _Hell_, it was required. No... Hyūga Neji could not have asked for a more perfect opportunity, because Hyūga Hinata stood before him as an enemy and _duty, obedience _and _patience_ no longer applied.

Now... he would venerate her in _blood._

They fought then. He had expected her to give up, because even if the Hyūga bastards acted as if Neji were beneath them, they knew that he was stronger than all of them. She had stood firm, though, under the blond idiot's cheers of encouragement and her teammates' hopeful gazes. He had offered her the opportunity to give up, but he was _glad_ that she had rejected it.

"Stupidity never met anything more reckless," Neji whispered to himself as she charged at him, activating his Byakugan.

He ignored everything but her. She was pathetic in her fear of him, as she well should be. He let her attack, let her have the illusion that she was gaining ground... all the while sewing the seeds of destruction with blocked chakra points and a strike to her vitals that had her coughing up blood before she even knew what was happening...

But she _still_ refused to give up, telling him that it was _he _that was fighting against something he could not win against...

Something snapped inside Neji then... and he was filled with the insatiable to _kill_ her, kill the main family _bitch_... For father, for the branch family the main family had subjugated and forced to serve... for... for... for _himself_...

But they stopped him. The match was over. Neji had won and Hinata collapsed, in danger of actually _dying_. He should have been happy, should have been sated...

Yet when the blond idiot swore that he'd defeat him, Hinata's blood on his fingers and murder in his eyes, all Neji felt was terribly empty, the taste of sour bile (a mix of bitter coffee and sweet pineapple) rising in his throat.

In the end, it changed nothing. Fate still had its hold over him.

Hyūga Neji had forgotten that there was no such thing as opportunity, and berated himself for giving himself that illusion.

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_A/N: Hm... well, I hope you guys enjoyed it. _

_I have a friend (_**SecretAgentX**_) who writes regularly for this fandom, and we each challenged each other to write a fic with certain requirements and restrictions. My challenge was..._

_Requirements: One of the characters must hate the other one because of a past event that affected their lives from that point on. Still suffering, the character decides to settle the dispute once and for all. The words facade, holistic, coffee, pineapple and inadequate must be used in the story. The phrase "Stupidity never met anything more reckless" must be used in dialogue by one of the main characters.  
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_Challenges are a good exercise, and I enjoyed writing this fic. Once again, I hope that you guys did too._

_Favorites mean an e-mail, reviews mean a smile. Thanks.  
_


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